Human Rights Organizations Condemn This Weekend’s Sheldon Adelson-Organized Anti-BDS Meeting
June 5, 2015 – As organizations committed to freedom, justice, and equality for all peoples in Palestine, Israel, and beyond, we believe the meeting that right-wing billionaire Sheldon Adelson is reportedly holding this weekend in Las Vegas to counter the grassroots boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement is the latest evidence of BDS’ success, and of the moral bankruptcy of its opponents. The meeting is expected to raise millions to counter the growing movement to boycott, divest, and sanction (BDS) Israel’s unequal treatment of the six million Palestinians under its rule. This is the moral equivalent of fundraising to preserve apartheid in South Africa, or Jim Crow in the United States.
For nearly half a century, Palestinians have lived under a form of apartheid in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, denied the most basic of freedoms and rights. They have been ethnically cleansed, imprisoned en masse, walled up in ghettoes, and had their lands stolen and their homes and agricultural crops destroyed. And for nearly 70 years, Palestinian citizens of Israel, who comprise approximately 20% of Israel’s population, have endured systematic discrimination in a state that explicitly privileges Jewish citizens over all others.
In 2005, more than 170 Palestinian civil society organizations issued a historic call to the international community for BDS campaigns aimed at protecting Palestinian rights. The BDS movement calls for an end to Israel’s military occupation of Arab lands that began in 1967, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, and the dismantling of Israel’s Apartheid wall, built mostly on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank. It also calls for Palestinian citizens of Israel to be granted full and equal rights, and for Palestinian refugees to be allowed to exercise their internationally recognized legal right to return to homes and lands they were expelled from during Israel’s creation and subsequently. The Palestinian BDS movement was inspired by the US Civil Rights and South Africa anti-Apartheid movements, and promotes peaceful, time-honored tactics that have been used by those seeking justice, human rights, and equality throughout history.
Since the call for BDS was issued a decade ago, people of conscience around the world have taken action to support the Palestinian struggle for freedom and justice. Due to BDS campaigns, numerous companies have stopped operating in the occupied territories, artists have cancelled performances in Israel, and institutions and church groups have divested from corporations that are complicit in Israel’s war crimes.
Here in the United States, a growing number of Americans, especially young people and people of color, are increasingly critical of Israeli policies and supportive of BDS. This is particularly significant considering the United States is the main backer of Israel, providing an estimated $5 billion in military aid in 2015 alone. At the same time, attacks from BDS opponents have been increasing and becoming more vitriolic, with numerous anti-BDS bills being introduced to Congress and at the state level in places like Illinois, and bullying and McCarthyite tactics being used by often anonymous attackers.
The contrast between those who are for the status quo of occupation and apartheid in Palestine and Israel, and those working for freedom and equality for all peoples of the region could not be more clear. On the one side, there is a diverse group of grassroots human rights activists struggling for freedom, justice, and equality, and on the other, a narrow, top-down, anti-democratic, pro-war and pro-occupation movement aimed at maintaining apartheid and ethnic privilege for one group over all others. The fact that this weekend’s anti-BDS summit is being held in the wake of the latest Israeli election, which witnessed a racist campaign by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and brought to power the most extreme, right-wing government in Israel’s history, makes it even more troubling.
In addition to marking the ten-year anniversary of the BDS call, this July will mark the one-year commemoration of Israel’s most recent war on Gaza, which killed an estimated 2,200 Palestinians, most of them civilians, including 500 children. The continued lack of accountability for any of Israel’s war crimes and the reality of an Israeli government openly committed to denying fundamental Palestinian rights and further entrenching its nearly half century old occupation are clear evidence of the importance and urgency of BDS. Attacks from opponents, like those gathering in Las Vegas this weekend, will not succeed in intimidating BDS advocates, or in denying Palestinians their freedom.
Signatories
Adalah-NY
American Studies Association
CODEPINK
Dream Defenders
Friends of Sabeel – North America
Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Jewish Voice for Peace
National Students for Justice in Palestine Ad-Hoc Steering Committee
United Methodist Kairos Response
US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
“those working for freedom and equality for all peoples of the region”
Lol. Nothing about the BDS movement supports this claim. You’re working for Palestinian national aspirations. You’ve said less than zero on the freedom of others in the Middle East.
It’s a great message altogether, and an impressive group of people/organizations whose numbers will only swell in the face of the depravity exhibited by the high rollers and Israel- firsters in Las Vegas. How fitting that the King of Schmucks (soon to be indicted) is rallying the rest of them to fight against peace, justice, and dignity for the Palestinians. No way can you buy your way out of this!
“The continued lack of accountability for any of Israel’s war crimes and the reality of an Israeli government openly committed to denying fundamental Palestinian rights and further entrenching its nearly half century old occupation are clear evidence of the importance and urgency of BDS. Attacks from opponents, like those gathering in Las Vegas this weekend, will not succeed in intimidating BDS advocates, or in denying Palestinians their freedom.”
Onward, good people everywhere!
In another effort to throw money at the Israel’s image problem, here’s an item for the vomitorium:
“Maiden ‘Birthright for honeymooners’ trip brings 40 couples from L.A. and Phoenix to Israel
For many of the diverse participants this was their first exposure to the Holy Land. More trips are planned.
CAESAREA – It’s officially billed as a honeymoon trip, but few of the couples on this program are actual newlyweds. Quite a number have already celebrated their anniversaries, and others have yet to wed.
That’s not the point, though. The real purpose of Honeymoon Israel, as its organizers stress, is to provide participants with their first meaningful Jewish experience as a couple. When exactly that happens, they say, is not super-critical.
Participating in this inaugural trip are 20 couples from Los Angeles and another 20 from Phoenix. The two groups are traveling separately.
The couples from Los Angeles are a diverse bunch. They include Jewish women and men married or engaged to non-Jewish men and women, Jewish women and men married or engaged to converts, converts in long-term relationships with non-Jews, a transgender couple, a disabled reality television star and an expectant mom. Only two couples in the group hold the distinction of having both partners born Jewish.
Inspired by Taglit-Birthright’s free trips to Israel for college students, this brand new program provides heavily discounted 10-day trips to the Holy Land for couples that meet its eligibility requirements. Of the $10,000 cost of the trip, they pay only $1,800.
The program is a joint initiative of two Americans, both highly experienced in the Jewish organizational world: Mike Wise, who has held various senior positions in Jewish federations, and Avi Rubel, the founding North American director of Masa – an organization that runs dozens of educational, volunteer and internship programs in Israel.”…..
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-features/.premium-1.659664
Thank you Mondoweiss editors and thanks for your comments Just
I wanted to say something meaningful and intelligent but I keep looking at that picture of Sheldon Adelson and he literally looks like…… a monster. Sorry about that!
I hope he does get indicted!
The old guard and the old ways are always become “dead men walking”. It’s nearly impossible to admit, let alone accept, when we’ve become irrelevant. We cling onto time, and power, and the illusion of control, as if we can only hang onto it we can keep death at bay. It can’t. These attempts are pathetic, the final outcomes inevitable and universal.
But, MAN, these guys live a long time. The first thing I do every day is check the obituaries for some good news. Not much action, yet, but it will come.